Amazonia in the nineties: Sustainable development or another decade of destruction?

Abstract

The late 1980s witnessed the emergence of an extraordinary global consensus on the importance of natural resource management and environmental protection. The public, planners and politicians, North and South, appear to be in agreement on the high status to be accorded to environmental issues. The pressures that have led to this consensus and the degree of sincerity amongst the planners and politicians are, of course, questionable. What is clear, however, is that in the 1990s in those countries where civil society can express its opinions freely and where these opinions will be taken into account in the formulation of public policy, politicians and planners will be obliged at least to coat their policies with a green varnish if not actively re-plan for sustainable development. Dead and gone are the days when environmental concerns could be dismissed out of hand as the province of romantic idealists. With the recent transformations in Central and Eastern Europe and the reemergence of pluralist politics throughout most of Latin America, the number of societies experiencing public pressure to rethink future development through a green prism has increased substantially. Various mega-issues have contributed to this sea change in public opinion and political response: desertification, global climatic change, marine pollution, food and water quality, nuclear risks, atmospheric pollution. One of the most resonant issues, however, which is capable of detonating substantial expressions of preoccupation and bewilderment, has been the fate of the world's tropical forests. Although tropical forests exist and suffer similar processes of degradation in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America, public opinion in countries without rainforests appears to have elected Amazonia, especially the Brazilian Amazon, as its major concern. There are obvious reasons why this should be the case. The Amazon region is by far the largest remaining tropical forest on the planet, and the major part is located within Brazil.' In addition, the relatively open nature of Brazilian society and the flow of information between non-governmental organisations, grass-